Nanomedicine metaphors: From war to care. Emergence of an oecological approach

• War metaphors have been widely used to describe the targeting ability and therapeutic potentials of multifunctional nanodevices against cancer.
• This militaristic view overlooks the interactions of nanoparticles with the complex dynamical environment of the body.
• Nanodevices should be defined by their interactions with the milieu, rather than as individual remotely-controlled entities.
• Nanomedicine may take advantage of the milieu for designing new strategies of care.
• The emerging oecological approach, focusing on nanoparticle relations with their environment, may prove more promising than the magic bullet concept.

SummaryImages such as ‘therapeutic missile’ are commonly used to present targeted drug delivery devices. The ballistic metaphor, reminiscent of Paul Ehrlich's ‘magic bullet’, has raised great expectations. Accordingly, chemists, physicists and engineers have worked hard to design smart ‘missiles’ delivering their load of drug to the target. While paying attention to the equipment of the nanodevice for the transport and molecular recognition for the delivery, they have to face the challenges posed by the messy environment of the body. We question the relevance of the missile metaphor, and suggest that an alternative oecological metaphor would be more appropriate. Such an approach, focused on interactions between the nanovehicle and the complex, versatile, heterogeneous biological milieu, seems more heuristic and promising.

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